LSE listings up more than 500 per cent in 2010

LONDON: The value of listings on the London Stock Exchange jumped over 500 percent this year as the British economy started growing again.

The London bourse said Wednesday that 89 companies raised 10.1 billion pounds ($15.5 billion) through Initial Public Offerings on its markets. That's up from 1.5 billion pounds in 2009 when Britain was mired in recession.

The number of listings on the secondary AIM market more than tripled to 43 and increased 58 percent by value to 961 million pounds. New listings including India's Essar Energy, Russia's Transcontainer, African Barrick Gold and local online grocer Ocado.

Tracey Pierce, director of equity primary markets, says the new floats ``are just the beginning of a growing, healthy, long term pipeline of issuers.''